FEATURED POST
June 10, 2025
The big deal about small employers
Last week, ADP data showed that employers with fewer than 50 workers shed a large number of jobs—13,000—in May. While one month doesn’t make a trend, it does remind us of the big role small employers play in our economy. So, when it comes to the macroeconomy, what’s the big deal with small employers? Here are three reasons small businesses have an outsized impact on the U.S. labor market.
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April 15, 2024
Main Street Macro: All that glitters
Last week’s hotter-than-expected inflation report surprised and rattled investors. The Consumer Price Index accelerated by 0.4 percent in March from the previous month. After a months-long slowdown, price increases in February and March reached their highest level since September and put the annual rate of inflation at 3.5 percent, firmly out of reach of the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target.
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April 8, 2024
Main Street Macro: Manufacturing: A Cinderella story
I grew up in Indiana, a big basketball state, so college ball has a special place in my heart. My favorite part of the NCAA college tournament has always been the Cinderella team, those players that surprise everyone with a winning streak. The economy’s winning streak isn’t a big surprise
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April 1, 2024
Main Street Macro: The good and the bad of stress
If you've ever had a job, you’ve probably experienced stress at work. There's no shame in it. But could workplace stress actually be a good thing? We examined this question, and found an answer.
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March 25, 2024
Main Street Macro: How to catch a moving target
Change is a constant theme on this blog. That’s not only because the Main Street economy is always in motion, which it is, but also because big, long-in-the-making changes have begun rapidly shifting the economic landscape. For business leaders and decision-makers, it can be hard to keep up, let alone catch changing trends.
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March 18, 2024
Main Street Macro: The new geography of work
Anyone who has ever done any hiring knows it’s not always easy to find the right person for the job. And if you’ve been on the other side of the interview table, you know that finding the right company to work for also can be challenging, even in a good economy. This matching process between job candidates and hiring managers has changed a lot over the last four years due to the growth of remote-work arrangements.
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March 11, 2024
Main Street Macro: Missing the Mark: Trends in teacher salary
Teachers are a crucial part of the economy. I should know–my mom is a teacher. They’re part of the care economy, often described by economists as the workforce behind the workforce. In a new analysis, the ADP Research Institute’s Jeff Nezaj shows that even though the U.S. economy continues to add jobs at a rapid clip, the education sector is trailing behind. Here are three key findings.
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February 5, 2024
Main Street Macro: What to do with good news?
Wall Street has a complicated relationship with good news, especially when interest rates are high, like they are now. Investors know that economic growth is good for their portfolios, but economic growth plus rock-bottom interests are even better.
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January 29, 2024
Main Street Macro: What color is your collar?
This week brings the first jobs report of the new year, and already people are asking about the outlook for 2024. Worries about inflation and recession have been supplanted by labor-market anxiety. Layoffs in technology and finance have triggered unease that white-collar jobs might be vulnerable to a hiring slowdown this year.
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